For many small stores, no choice but to be open on...

1of4Alana Fusco, left, helps a customer at Gerald Peters, a jewelry store at New York's Staten Island Mall. The store's lease requires it to open on Thanksgiving.﻿Photo: Kathy Willens, STF

2of4In this Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2015, photo, business owner Jerry Amerosi, left, chats with employee Alana Fusco behind the counter at Gerald Peters, one of three stores he owns in the Staten Island Mall, in the Staten Island borough of New York. Amerosiâs three stores in the mall will open at 6 p.m., on Thanksgiving and stay open until midnight. Heâll have eight employees working, and if this Thanksgiving is anything like last yearâs, theyâll have their hands full. "It was crazy busy," he said. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)Photo: Kathy Willens, STF

3of4In this Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2015, photo, Jerry Amerosi walks to greet a customer at Gerald Peters jewelers, one of three stores he owns in the Staten Island Mall in New York. Amerosiâs three stores will open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving and stay open until midnight. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)Photo: Kathy Willens, STF

4of4In this Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2015, photo, a shopper walks past Gerald Peter jewelers at the Staten Island Mall, in New York. The store, one of three in the mall owned by Jerry Amerosi, will open at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving and stay open until midnight. Amerosi's lease at the mall, which has big stores, including Macyâs, J.C. Penney and Sears, requires him to open. Thatâs the norm for most malls, whose landlords will fine retailers, in some cases over $1,000, if they stay closed. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)Photo: Kathy Willens, STF

NEW YORK - Some big retailers face scrutiny for opening on Thanksgiving, but many small stores have no choice.

Take jeweler Jerry Amerosi, who has three stores in New York's Staten Island Mall. Amerosi says he'd rather not work on the holiday, and if his stores were on a downtown or neighborhood street, he wouldn't.

But his lease at the mall requires him to open. That's the norm for most malls, whose landlords fine retailers up to $1,000 or more if they don't open.

So, Amerosi's stores will be open 6 p.m. to midnight. Eight employees will be working, and if this Thanksgiving is like last year's holiday, they'll have their hands full.

"It was crazy busy," says Amerosi, who declined to give sales figures for his stores, which include Gerald Peters and Gerald Peters Gold Mine.

Opting for family time

Big national retailers and malls began opening on Thanksgiving several years ago. The idea was to cater to people who can't wait until the day after Thanksgiving known as Black Friday, to start their holiday shopping.

But that has led to criticism of retailers by some labor groups and shoppers for requiring workers to give up time with their families. As a result, some stores have come out publicly to proclaim that they'll remain closed on Thanksgiving. TJX, which owns TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods, even rolled out ads this year that tout its decision to stay closed during the holidays, with a narrator saying "family time comes first."

Still, there's been an expanding list in recent years of big chains and shopping centers that open at least part of the day. It can pay off: Shoppers spent an estimated $3.3 billion on Thanksgiving last year, according to ShopperTrak, a company that compiles retail industry statistics.

Some see few shoppers

The economics of opening on Thanksgiving can be a little different for the smaller guys. Flower and candy shops in some areas may decide to stay open for customers who need something at the last minute to take to Thanksgiving dinner. But experts say stores that sell gift items for the December holidays are likely to have few takers unless they're in a mall.

Most independent retailers are likely to close to spend time with their families, but also because shoppers won't be prowling downtown areas and neighborhoods to see who might be open, says Bob Phibbs, CEO of the Retail Doctor, a consulting company based in Coxsackie, N.Y.

Unless a retailer is a coffeehouse or food store, he says they'll probably waste time and money by being open.

"They're not going to get much sympathy," Phibbs says. "People are going to ask, 'Are you nuts? Why didn't you close?' "

Hot spot for snowbirds

Refinery, a men's leather goods and accessory store, will be open along at 10 a.m. with the other stores in the Coconut Point mall in Estero, Fla., on the Gulf Coast. Owner Andrew Kryliouk says he'd rather not work on Thanksgiving, but like other retailers in the mall, he's required to open his store.

Many of Kryliouk's customers are people known as snowbirds, who spend the cold months in Florida and head back north in the spring. Many shop on Thanksgiving because they don't have family nearby and so aren't having big holiday dinners.

"They might go to a restaurant, and then go to the mall to hang out," says Kryliouk, who had $1,000 in sales last year, compared with $4,000 for a typical November day.

Busier than usual

At the Great Mall in Milpitas, Calif., Alder Riley expects to be busy on the holiday helping customers who need replacement parts for espresso makers, TV remotes and other household items - something always seems to break on Thanksgiving. Last year, when Riley's business was located in Vermont, his main store in Burlington had $1,200 in revenue, four times the take on a typical day.